Grassley says we need to learn from hurricane response mistakes

While criticism of the government is heavy in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says we need to learn from our obvious mistakes.Grassley says lots of things went wrong at the federal and state levels. In something this dramatic, he says the federal government needs to be able to cut through all of the red tape and not necessarily wait for governors to request help. Grassley says it may have been a mistake to put the Federal Emergency Management Agency under the umbrella of Homeland Security. When the change was made, it was done under the belief that if there was a terrorist attack, every federal agency should be pulling together to fight under the same leadership to fight a terrorist attack, but he says, “it surely hasn’t worked very well in the natural disaster of Katrina.” Grassley says a change-up may be needed that would allow FEMA to act independently of Homeland Security when terrorism isn’t an issue.